DISCUSSION ON ISRAEL

link all’articolo di Albertani: http://utopiarossa.blogspot.com/2023/12/discussione-su-israele-parte-1-di-3.html  

link alla risposta di Nobile: http://utopiarossa.blogspot.com/2023/12/discussione-su-israele-parte-2-di-3.html  

link alla risposta di Massari: http://utopiarossa.blogspot.com/2023/12/discussione-su-israele-parte-3-di-3.html

Answer to Albertani

by Roberto Massari

 

ENGLISH - ESPAÑOL - FRANÇAIS - DEUTSCH - РУССКИЙ

Dear Claudio, 

as you well know, in recent times and before your article, Red Utopia [Utopia Rossa] had already published some texts openly talking about a single, multi-ethnic, democratic, secular and if necessary even federal state. And I am pleased that you favorably quote similar positions from anti-Zionist, leftist or simply democratic Israelis or Jews (moreover, positions that are not new but have always existed), which coincide so with ours. You recall that Martin Buber also had an analogous or similar position – a binational democratic state – but, so far as I know, he never denied the legitimacy of existence of the State of Israel, however critical he may have been on UN Resolution 181.

Let us come to your article, starting with the question of the legitimacy of existence of the State of Israel.

This state, which came into being in 1947-48, in a legal sense has a more than legitimateexistence, because this legitimacy came to it by the highest supranational body that exists in the world: the United Nations (be it good or bad, and good or bad that decision was). It was not an act of military occupation or territorial conquest by force. Nor was it a compromise of colonial powers, as it was for Iraq, Syria and Jordan, whose borders were largely decided at the table (primarily by Britain) by drawing lines on the map. The birth of Israel (Resolution No. 181) was voted on Nov. 24, 1947 by a majority of the countries then members of the UN: 33 in favor (including the USSR, and this is crucial that we do not forget, and certainly not out of my sympathy for an anti-Semite like Stalin), 13 against (mostly Arab or Muslim states) and 10 abstained. The resolution also included the establishment of a Palestinian state and other clauses that were disregarded (by Israel, but not only, including the UN).

TRADE WAR, SKRIPAL, ARSENIC AND OLD LACE, by Michele Nobile

IN DUE LINGUE (Inglese, Italiano)
IN TWO LANGUAGES (English, Italian)

© Mindaugas Bonanu

Like the rest of humanity, I have no way of identifying the instigator of the attempted assassination of former Russian double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter. But I venture some reasoning, just to clear the field of fantasies and focus on real problems.

It is true that personalities unwelcome to the Kremlin sometimes meet with serious and mysterious pathologies. One of the famous cases is that of Viktor Yushchenko, a candidate for the presidential elections of Ukraine in 2004, in an election campaign during which, inter alia, Putin travelled seven times to that country to support Yushchenko’s competitor Yanukovych.

Others include: Alexander Litvinenko, the exiled former official of the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation (FSB) and critic of Putin, poisoned to death with polonium in London in 2006; journalist Anna Politkovskaya, distinguished for her services on the war in Chechnya, gunned down in Moscow, also in 2006; Boris Berezovsky, the most influential of Russian oligarchs at the time of Yeltsin, another exile critical of Putin who died in unclear circumstances in London in 2013; and Boris Nemtsov, head of the Soyuz Pravykh Sil [Union of Right Forces] party, assassinated in 2015.

However, it is incomprehensible what interest Moscow could have in eliminating Skripal, risking an international crisis. Why kill an individual already regularly released in 2010, as part of an exchange of arrested “spies” with the United States? What other terrible revelations could there be eight years later and after having been questioned – immediately and at length – by the competent services?

And then, why eliminate him with such a sophisticated means as nerve gas, the origin of which could be traced? Would not it have been better to simulate a car accident? A tile on his head? Have a pistol shot or the classic arsenic, both so anonymous, perhaps gone out of fashion?

On the other hand, neither is it clear why Skripal should be eliminated by some “Western” service. There is no shortage of motivations for further increasing tension with Moscow and, if necessary, bigger and more emotional ones can be invented for public opinion.

The truth is that in cases like these the imagination can have free rein. Could Skripal have been poisoned by other players interested in increasing tension between Russia and the “West”?

Let us speculate: could those responsible not have been North Korean agents interested in neutralising Russian pressure towards an agreement with the United States, or agents of ISIS or of the Assad regime? Or Chechen separatists? Or also, why not, could it not have been the sophisticated killers of an occult “Spectre” of businessmen linked to the military-industrial complex who used the nerve gas?

Actually not only do I not have the means, but also I am not even interested in knowing who poisoned Sergei Skripal and his daughter. From the point of view of world history and the interests of ordinary citizens, this is irrelevant. I do not need a judicial truth to know that – if they so wish – States can act without scruples, kill and slaughter. Reason of state exists, but good States do not exist.

To give another example, I remember well that in July 1985 the French secret services blew up the Greenpeace ship Rainbow Warrior, which was protesting against nuclear explosions in French Polynesia, causing the death of a man. President then was “companion” Mitterand … of the Union de la gauche.

Two of the saboteurs of the Direction générale de la sécurité extérieure were arrested by the New Zealand police, tried and sentenced to ten years. The French Defence Minister was forced to resign, but New Zealand, placed under economic blackmail by France, was forced into an agreement whereby the two assassins were first transferred under French custody, then released and finally given a promotion.

What happened to the Rainbow Warrior is crystal clear, unlike the Skripal case and in general of real historically relevant plots, which have the unfortunate characteristic of remaining secret in the phase of preparation, but of revealing themselves in implementation; coups d’état are an easy example of it.

So I willingly leave investigations to the competent bodies and conjectures to the devotees of spy stories and the conspiracy theorists of every sort, who already have the pre-packaged answer according to their personal paranoias and political sympathies.

The personalisation and Manichaean division of political players into good and bad – of course the villains are cunning and treacherous, although doomed to defeat – belong to a view of the world that is infantile and easily manipulated.

Something else is important in this filthy affair, whoever the instigators: the flurry of mass expulsions of Russian diplomats from NATO countries and of NATO diplomats from Russia. For many commentators, together with the looming trade war between the United States and China, this affair seems to be the prelude to a new Cold War.

However, care must also be taken not to arrive at hasty conclusions that can distract attention from the underlying issues.

It may be recalled that in 1986 the United States expelled 80 Soviet diplomats after the arrest of a Russian-American journalist in Moscow, and the Soviets, in turn, reciprocated. Nevertheless, the following year Reagan and Gorbachev signed the treaty on medium-range missiles and three years later the Second Cold War was officially declared over.

And then, in 2001, the United States and Russia expelled 53 diplomats each, but – despite other major problems – this did not prevent the two powers from continuing to collaborate in the “war on terror”, and Putin saying of the American president, during the celebrations of the anniversary of the foundation of St. Petersburg: “We have many points of coincidence of our views on many issues. And it is precisely these things that enable me to call president Bush my friend, not only personally – because personally I do like him a lot –, but as my counterpart and the President of a friendly nation”.

Of course, we need to contextualise … and this is the point.

The use of the term “Cold War” – without further qualifications – was very popular for the entire post-World War II period but also misleading, and the same applies to the current framework of relations between Russia and the “West”.

I think the periodisation proposed by Fred Halliday in his book The making of the Second Cold War is correct: it distinguishes the First Cold War (1946–1953), oscillatory antagonism (1953–1969), détente (1969–1979) and the Second Cold War (from 1980 and ending de facto with the Reykjavík summit between Gorbachev and Reagan in October 1986).

The phase of oscillatory antagonism was characterised by negotiations and repeated attempts to reduce tensions between the two sides, each of which failed due to events in part outside the control of the two powers, but which necessarily involved both and pitted one against the other.

It was therefore a phase that combined aspects of the Cold War with aspects of détente and which, unlike the latter, would be clearly defined more in retrospect than when it was in vigour.

Well, all in all, it is this that the relations between the United States and Putin’s Russia resemble: so much so that jihadist terrorism (and for Russia, in particular, Chechen terrorism) is a common enemy; and the energy flows from Russia to Western Europe would have been unthinkable during the First Cold War (these flows began during détente and were among the reasons for the postponement of Soviet reforms and the paradoxical “resource curse” still affecting the Russian economy).

There is also a fundamental reason why we must be very careful about likening contemporary relations between Russia and “West” to the Cold War, which was a contrast between different social systems: capitalist imperialism on the one hand and totalitarian pseudo-socialism on the other.

In the 21st century, neither Soviet nor Maoist “communism” exist any longer. We only have capitalisms, and those of Russia and China are also imperialisms (in the proper and structural sense that leaves aside a more or less aggressive policy; at least for Marxists, this should be obvious).

Posing the question as if it were the Cold War is a way to fuel tension and confusion. Or to create the consolatory illusion of reliving old “glorious” times: something even more erroneous when one considers – moreover – that Putin and Trump are both placed to the right of the political spectrum: traditionalists, nationalists, authoritarians, militarists and sexists.

However, it is since the Ukrainian crisis and the annexation of Crimea that the pendulum has tended towards the freeze: the current diplomatic crisis is part of the picture, but we cannot rule out the easing of tension. We will see.

As for the protectionist initiative of the Trump administration, this was long awaited.

So, coincidence between the two facts? Yes, most likely. Also because moving towards Cold War at the same time with Russia and China would be quite stupid, and it would be even more stupid to do this while threatening or actually undertaking a trade war with allies.

Can we speculate that behind the poisoning of Skripal there is the Machiavellian European Commission, which intends, in this way, to prevent Trump from kissing Putin’s cheek? Or that it is a ruse of the opponents of Brexit? The list of possible plots can be lengthened.

There is no doubt that there is negotiation with China and that in March it initially responded moderately to US tariffs, promising concessions; in the meantime, it appears that the European Commission and Gazprom are coming to an agreement to close a very expensive antitrust case dating back to 2011; the meeting in Washington proposed by Trump to Putin during the congratulatory call for the third re-election of the Russian president (so, two weeks after the poisoning of Skripal) remains to be defined.

In my opinion, the crucial question is that when well contextualised, far from being the result of the strategy of a director, the scenography of relations with Russia seems quite botched and susceptible to very different developments.

It is true, however, that this it is not just a question of fortuity. It is the kind of situation that highlights the inherent contradictions of the Trump administration’s foreign policy.

The protectionist impetus responds to demands of domestic legitimation – based on electoral promises –, but is in contrast with the international division of labour and the reproduction of US capital on a global scale. A conflict is taking shape between US international economic policy and its policy of alliances and national security.

Protectionism is also a way to avoid implementing serious socioeconomic reforms in the United States. Behind the contradictions of the Trump administration’s foreign policy is the latent conflict between it and the population of ordinary North American citizens, including the white male workers who voted for him.

For the world, this is much more important than stories of spies, arsenic and old ideological lace.

REVERSE THE ‘INDIVIDUALISING IMAGINARY’ ON CLIMATE CHANGE, by Maurizio Fratta

IN DUE LINGUE (Inglese, Italiano)
IN TWO LANGUAGES (English, Italian)

University of Chicago Press, 2016

The data collected by climatologists speak clearly: the summer of 2017 in Italy was the second hottest since 1880 – when surveys began; the month of August recorded an average thermal excess of 2.5 °C, with the fourth day of the month the hottest in the last sixty years in many cities of central Italy.

That 2017 turned out to be Italy’s second hottest year ever (after 2016) is full confirmation of global warming scenarios.

The Italian summer of 2017, the fourth driest ever, will also be remembered for the serious water crisis caused by a dramatic reduction in rainfall throughout the country (-41% compared with seasonal averages), with serious repercussions on the leaking network of Italian aqueducts.

A season that will go down in history also and above all for fires: between June 15 and September 14 about one hundred thousand flared up (there were fifty thousand in 2016), one every 100 seconds, more than a thousand a day: from that of the Castel Fusano pinewood on the Roman coast – near the estate of the President of the Republic located in Castelporziano – to that of Vesuvius and its park, from the blaze in Sulmona to that of Monte Morrone, the peak of Celestino V.

On some days it seemed that the whole country was on fire. At the first rains – with the humus gone up in smoke – ashes consequently turned into mud, contributing to an increase in hydrogeological instability.

The effects of climate change are now visible to all: no living being has contributed to alter the life of our planet so deeply – and so quickly – as man.

Overheating of the Earth, determined by the greenhouse effect and related to the increase in CO2 emissions, is only one of the factors behind the planetary environmental crisis. Taking into account ocean acidification, the disproportionate use of fresh water, the overproduction of waste, fishing, deforestation and the vertical fall of biodiversity, it should be clear that in many natural processes the limits have already been exceeded.

Beyond the necessary change in lifestyles, the battle to reverse this trend would require a collective action, but politicians are unable to propose any credible alternative.

Worthy of note here, among others, is the contribution of physicist Gianni Mattioli on the occasion of the l’altrapagina magazine’s 29th Convention entitled “The parabola of food”, which was held in Città di Castello in September 2015.

Starting from the fact that some parameters – for example of CO2 – have been exceeded, Mattioli pointed out how this could cause a rupturing of the stability of the planet’s physical-climatic system, altering and upsetting periodic phenomena such as seasons, winds and sea currents, with the risk of giving rise to unpredictable chaos.

That meeting was also attended by the UPM (Un Punto Macrobiotico) national and international association – founded by Mario Pianesi –, which has been working in the field of agriculture and food for over thirty years with full respect for the environment and promotion of the health of the human being.

Reflecting on this joint work with Chiara Giallorenzo, president of the UPM Centre in Città di Castello, and with the adhesion of the “Mario Pancrazi” Study Centre – an association that pursues “the enhancement of the culture of mathematics” –, a conference was organised to tackle the issue of climate change starting from the effects found in Umbria and in Alta Valtiberina, and that did so by highlighting the relationships among environment, agriculture, food and health.

In order to reach an overall vision, naturalists, farmers and doctors were asked for their assessment with the aim of proposing a multidisciplinary approach that is able to identify a possible path of mitigation of the consequences of global warming.

In a territory where the abuse of pesticides used in industrial agriculture has severely contaminated surface water and groundwater, where the widespread presence of landfills and composting plants has poisoned soil and air and where rail transport has been marginalised irresponsibly – and finally suppressed in favour of vehicular (individual) transport, the primary source, along with that caused by animal breeding, of CO2 emissions – it is no longer possible to continue to look the other way, considering in particular the high rates of incidence of some types of cancer found both in the adult population and in childhood and youth in general.

If it is true – as Amitav Ghosh writes in The great derangement: climate change and the unthinkable – that indifference towards current catastrophes is the result of our individualism and our adherence to the dominant model of life and consumption, it will only be possible to face this challenge by becoming aware of what has happened and what is happening, thus finding “a way out of the individualizing imaginary in which we are trapped”.

TEN REFLECTIONS AND A COMMENT: THE CYCLE OF FEAR IN THE MIDST OF THE ANTHROPOCENE, by Roberto Savio and Michele Nobile

IN DUE LINGUE (Inglese, Italiano)
IN TWO LANGUAGES (English, Italian)

It is now clear that we are in a period of transition, even if we do not know where we are headed. It is evident that the political, economic and social system which has accompanied us since the end of the Second World War is no longer sustainable.

According to Amnesty International, exponentially growing inequalities have practically taken us back to the levels of Queen Victoria’s days: however, today on a global level. Ten years ago, 652 people possessed the same wealth as 2.3 billion people. Now they number just eight.

According to International Labour Organisation projections, the eighteen-year-olds of today will retire with an average pension of 632 euros.

Despite official statements, and surrounded by general indifference, we are reaching the limit of a 2 degrees centigrade increase in the temperature of the atmosphere since 1854, which is considered the limit beyond which our planet will suffer irreversible changes.

Finance has become detached from the economy creating a world of its own, the only one with no international control bodies, where financial transactions in a day are forty times higher than the production of goods and services around the entire planet. Since 2009, the major banks have paid over 800 billion fines as a result of illegal operations.

Political participation has fallen from an average of 86%, in 1960, to 63.7% today.

While an in-depth analysis of the situation would be extremely complex and involve all aspects of our life, it is possible to identify important – and at the same time simple – points of reflection on which to dwell together.

Reflection 1

The crisis has deep roots.

In 1973, the United Nations General Assembly unanimously adopted a global governance plan – designed to reduce inequalities among its members – known by the name of New International Economic Order. The plan was born with the support of the United States (even if launched by Mexico and Algeria).

The post-war international system – of which the United Nations is part, for example – had come about on the initiative of the United States, the main winners of the Second World War, which was interested in preserving peace and development after a war in which it lost 405,000 soldiers out of a population of 132 million people. Germany lost more than five million out of 78 inhabitants, of which over two million civilians, against 8,000 in the United States and nearly thirteen million in the USSR).

The United Nations was created with Washington’s commitment to contribute 25% to the budget, which illustrates the difference with today, when Trump is threatening to withdraw.

But until the 1981 summit in Cancún, which brought together the twenty-two most important Heads of State in the world (excluding the communist camp), we lived in the illusion of the end of inequality, based on a world democracy where the majority of countries decided the course to follow for the common good.

Newly-elected president Reagan took part in Cancún and announced that the United States no longer accepted being subjected to the rules of an abstract world democracy. The United States – he said – is not a country like the others, and would go back to deciding its own international and trade policy. Margaret Thatcher was also at the same meeting, becoming the European counterpart of Reagan.

A different vision of the world was born: “Society does not exist. Individuals exist (Thatcher); “It is not factories that pollute, but trees” (Reagan). Poverty produces poverty, wealth produces wealth. So the rich should be taxed as little as possible, because they distribute wealth.

Reflection 2

In 1989, a few years after Cancún, the Berlin Wall came down: it was the end of ideologies, the straitjackets that had led us to Nazism and Communism.

The core idea was that we must be pragmatic. Politics had to solve concrete problems, not pursue utopias. But the solution of a given problem without being part of a total vision of society – right or left, it does not matter – is actually called utilitarianism, and politics aimed at administration rather than at ideas distances political participation and increases corruption.

Without ideal programmes, the importance of the politician’s personality, possibly telegenic, increased and was measured on TV and not in public squares. Marketing, not ideas or programmes, became the main instrument for electoral campaigns.

Reflection 3

At the same time, neoliberal globalisation came into play as a single thought without alternatives (Thatcher’s There Is No Alternative – TINA; it is interesting to note that, before the fall of the Berlin Wall, the term globalisation had never appeared in the media).

This globalisation was based on the socioeconomic and political model of the so-called Washington Consensus, the development paradigm imposed by International Monetary Fund, World Bank and US Treasury. It envisaged the adoption of the following reforms: macroeconomic stabilisation, liberalisation (of trade, investments and finance), privatisation and deregulation.

It eliminated national protection barriers everywhere, reduced non-productive expenditure (education, health and social assistance) and promoted free competition among States. It is famous the definition of it given by Kissinger: “The new paradigm of American supremacy”. Developing countries experienced it as submission to economic rules imposed by the North. But Kissinger did not see that once the way to free competition had been opened, China and other countries would emerge.

Reflection 4

The reaction of the left to the single thought was the “Third Way”, successfully proposed by Tony Blair: it was time to abandon the old ideas of the left and ride the globalisation, accepting the lack of alternatives.

Social democracy, from Blair to Renzi, seeks to transform itself into a transversal party which also embraces the centre, with an active policy on concrete facts and no outdated ideological cages.

In fact, in this way the left has lost its popular base, and the 2008 crisis, caused by the absence of controls on American banks and then come up to Europe (with the left in government almost everywhere), has eliminated its capacity to redistribute surplus.

Workers, middle classes in crisis and victims of globalisation seek new defenders and vote for Le Pen (France), Farage (Britain), Wilder (Netherlands) and so on, up to choosing Salvini and the Five Star Movement (Italy).

Reflection 5

Numerous historians believe that greed and fear have been among the main engines of change in history.

In his latest book, Nel nome dell’umanità, Riccardo Petrella argues that these engines were implemented using three “traps”: in the name of God, in the name of the Nation and in the name of Profit. There is no doubt that since the fall of the Berlin Wall the values of globalisation (competition, profit, individualism and exaltation of wealth), together with the disappearance of social justice (solidarity, transparency, equity, etc.) from political debate, have created an ethics based on greed.

And twenty years later, in 2009, the economic and financial crisis – first in the United States (on real estate speculation) and then in Europe (on sovereign bonds) – has opened up a second cycle: that of fear.

Reflection 6

The cycle of fear which is in full swing (without having abandoned greed and while the three “traps” are once again in use) has created a new right which is not about ideas, but is based on emotions.

Brexit and Trump are easy-to-see phenomena, but the real phenomenon is much deeper. We are in a liquid society that is not structured on ideologies or classes. And in this society it is easy for leaders who ride fear and greed to leap into the limelight.

The 2009 crisis joined up with mass immigration from countries invaded by the West to depose their dictators and automatically introduce democracy. (Nevertheless, the disintegration of Yugoslavia – a modern and European country – after the death of Tito should have been a warning.)

It is not democracy that is ushered in, but chaos, civil wars, blood and destruction.

In 2003, George W. Bush began the invasion of Iraq. In 2011, civil war broke out in Syria, becoming soon a clash among Arab powers, Europe, the United States and Russia (as a result: six million displaced and half a million dead). In 2013, Sarkozy pushed an invasion into Libya.

From the ruins of Iraq, ISIS was born – terrorism in the name of God, for a return to original Islam (Wahhabism, financed worldwide by Saudi Arabia with 80 billion dollars in the last twenty years). Fifteen years before, the veterans of the US-funded war against Russian occupation in Afghanistan had gathered under the leadership of Osama Bin Laden in another organization, Al Qaeda, making the first attack in history on North American soil, in 2001.

As El Roto, famous cartoonist of El País, says: “We send them bombs, and they send us migrants”.

Two “traps” are triggered on the arriving refugees: in the name of God and in the name of the Nation.

Now, in Europe, identitarian and sovereignty parties are the second political force, ahead of socialist parties. If European elections were held today, the radical right would gather forty million votes. It is in power in Hungary, Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia and Austria, but it also conditions the governments of the Nordic countries, Netherlands and Germany itself (since Alternative für Deutschland won 92 seats).

In Hungary, Orbán has launched the so-called “illiberal democracy”, Poland has denounced the secularism of the European Union and called for a huge march with populists and sovereignists from all over Europe, to the cry of “In the name of God”. The Visegrád Group (Hungary, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland, and now also Austria) has denounced the yielding of Europe to Islam and created an East-West rift of Europe, which joins the North-South rift on the vision of the economy: austerity or solidarity.

But there is something new: the United States intervenes in Europe openly supporting nationalist and xenophobic right-wing parties, which at the same time look not only to Trump, but also to Putin (who is also intervening in the European elections), considering him a point of reference.

As a result, in a rapidly aging Europe (in Italy, for example, young people between the ages of 18 and 25 account for only 3% of those entitled to vote), immigration has become a great populist and xenophobic right-wing banner.

Meanwhile, the International Monetary Fund has launched a warning: Europe needs to absorb 20.5 million immigrants in the short term, so that it can support its pension system and maintain productivity levels. Statistics show that immigrants contribute to the system more than they cost; they constitute the great majority of new small businesses and their dream is to be quickly integrated into the European system.

But there is no debate on immigration and what categories of immigrants to welcome. They are now all seen as dangerous invaders, intent on destroying the European identity, on crime and as taking work away from European citizens, victims of intense unemployment. Even Trump, in a country made up of immigrants, has made immigration control one of his warhorses.

A tragic phenomenon is that young people, many less than retirees, are no longer politically active. In history, young people burst onto the political scene to change the world they find. If they had voted, Brexit would not have happened. But the political system – of the elderly – ignores them. In Italy, the Renzi government allocated 30 billion euros to save four banks. In the same year, the total in the budget for young Italians was two billion.

Since the creation of the United Nations in 1945, we have risen from 2.5 billion inhabitants to 7.5 billion today. The growth will stop only in 2050, when we will number 9.5 billion. Either we find an agreement on governability and immigration that we need, or we will have to shoot immigrants, as some have already proposed.

DEMOCRACY À LA GOOGLE, FACEBOOK & YOUTUBE: SOME REFLECTIONS, by Lucas Malaspina

IN DUE LINGUE (Inglese, Spagnolo)
IN TWO LANGUAGES (English, Spanish)

When Mark Zuckerberg decided to offer emerging nations Internet.org, anger was not long in exploding. As Daniel Leisegang writes in “Facebook está salvando al mundo”, this project which emerged in 2013 was a humanitarian masquerade: to allow Internet access to a huge number of Third World citizens who still remain outside the global village.

The idea was to break the barriers that prevent, for example, two-thirds of the Indian population from joining Facebook. However, besides India, the project was aimed at a total of 100 more nations.

Accused of violating the neutrality of the network, Facebook had to change the name: Internet.org came to be called Free Basics and it had to leave India in 2015 due to the large amount of criticism it received.

Why? Because Facebook was not offering plain and simple Internet, but an application for mobile phones through which the lower income sectors of that country could access a limited version of the Internet.

The idea, originally driven by the spirit that “connectivity is a human right”, ended up showing that what Zuckerberg was proposing was laying hands on the gigantic data mass of a significant number of the world’s poor (for monetising them).

Who decided what services would be available in the application? According to Chris Daniels, vice-president of the company, the decision was taken by Facebook, the government of each country and the associated telecommunications operator.

We could be justified in saying that if “Internet is a human right”, with Free Basics Facebook only aims to regulate the “limited human rights” of half of the world’s population (which does not have access to the Internet).

Policies that actually widen the digital divide have little to envy in the model of North Korea, where the majority only has access to a modest local Intranet which has only 28 pages available and contents controlled by the government of Kim Jong-un (the exception, as is obvious, is the ruling elite).

Free Basics, which is in a very embryonic phase, counted about 40 million users in November 2016. In Latin America, Free Basics has already been implemented in three countries (over twenty have joined worldwide): Colombia, Guatemala and also Bolivia, whose inclusion in this programme highlights the insufficient discussion of the problems of the monopoly of information in the digital era by continental populism (or, in this case, its collaboration with/subordination to such monopolies).

Free Basics does not allow access to Google, the most popular search engine in the world, but to Bing (the search engine of competitor Microsoft, which owns shares in Facebook).

Now, what happens with the 49.6% (3,700 million people) that do have access to Internet tout court, without (apparent) restrictions, more than 90% of which are Google users? Can we really boast of using a truly free and “neutral” Internet?

Search Engine Manipulation Effect

The expression “Search Engine Manipulation Effect” (SEME) was used in August 2015 by Robert Epstein and Ronald E. Robertson, two American academics who demonstrated that it was possible to decide the vote of 20% or more of undecided voters depending on the results offered by Google.

In several articles and interviews, Epstein refers to his study and states that “in some demographic groups, up to 80% of voters” may change their electoral preferences according to the results offered by Google. In February 2016, the British media were the subject of a controversy over the interference of the search engine in the elections.

This is not just a problem of Western democracy. According to French intellectual Barbara Cassin, author of Google me: one-click democracy, Google is said to have given the Chinese government profiles of its users in that country, “which allowed identification and even the arrest of dissidents”.

To illustrate the ideological bias of search engines, Cassin states that “if, in a country other than China, one writes Tiananmen in Google, you will obtain data on the repression of demonstrators in that Beijing square in 1989 which left hundreds dead: but, if you write it in China, you will only get peaceful urban references to the square”.

Of course, Google does not admit this ideological bias implicit in its system, but the company’s recent policies to help “fight terrorism” in general – and the Islamic State (ISIS) in particular – specifically show how its power over the decisions of people works today.

Take Jigsaw, a Google pilot programme based on its customised advertising system, which has a zero commercial, but certainly political, objective. The plan is to locate users who are receptive to the message of ISIS and offer them a series of specific announcements, through which they are secretly redirected to contents that refute the thesis of ISIS and could help dissuade them from the idea of joining the ‘Caliphate’.

Few could object to Google convincing people to reject ISIS, but it is clear that this reveals that Google is far from being “neutral” or “objective” and, on the contrary, draws attention to the possibilities of manipulating the user.

Battle against fake news or censorship 2.0?

Times have changed, and with them also what we find on the Internet. In 2010, when searching politics on Google, only 40% of the results were provided by the media. In 2016, that percentage was close to 70%.

On April 25, 2017, Google announced that it had implemented changes in its search service to make it harder for users to access what it called “low quality” information such as “conspiracy theories” and “fake news”. Facebook also applied a similar policy.

Google said that the central purpose of the change in its search algorithm was to provide greater control in the identification of content considered objectionable. Speaking on behalf of the company, Ben Gomes stated that Google had “improved evaluation methods and made algorithmic updates” in order to “make more authoritative content emerge”.

Google continued: “we update our guidelines to evaluate search quality for providing more detailed examples of low quality web pages for evaluators to mark properly”. These moderators are instructed to mark “annoying experiences for the user”, including pages that present “conspiracy theories”.

According to Google, these changes apply unless “the query clearly indicates that the user is seeking an alternative point of view”.

Since Google implemented the changes in its search engine, fewer people have accessed left-wing, progressive or anti-war news sites. Based on the information available in an Alexa analysis, some of the sites that have experienced losses in ranking include WikiLeaks, Truthout, Alternet, Counterpunch, Global Research, Consortium News, WSWS, American Civil Liberties Union and even Amnesty International.

Interestingly, shortly before that Google decision, The Washington Post had published an article titled “Russian propaganda effort helped spread ‘fake news’ during election, experts say”. That article cited an anonymous group known as PropOrNot that had compiled a list of fake news sites spreading “Russian propaganda”. On April 7, 2017, Bloomberg News reported that Google was working directly with The Washington Post to “verify” articles and eliminate fake news.

This was followed by the new Google search methodology: of the 17 sites declared as “false news” by The Washington Post’s blacklist, 14 dropped in their world ranking. The average decrease in the global reach of all these sites has been 25%, and some sites saw it drop by 60%.

The suspicion that Google has allied with the powerful traditional media to discriminate against alternative and independent media is strengthened by linking these facts.

In addition to its own search engine, Google has control over YouTube, a company bought in 2006 (one year after its founding). Starting from a certain number of views, YouTube pays video producers for placing advertisements (ads) on their videos, acting as an intermediary between the big companies and them.

The most serious change in YouTube occurred as a result of reports such as that of The Wall Street Journal stating that ads appearing on YouTube videos showed extremism and hatred. When big advertisers such as AT&T and Johnson & Johnson withdrew their ads, YouTube announced that it would try to make the site more acceptable to advertisers by “taking a tougher stance on hateful, offensive and derogatory content”.

With these new algorithms, Google harmed producers of progressive and independent videos, provoking what they called adpocalypse (“apocalypse of the ads”). Basically, the mechanism ended up by condemning those alternative content and pushed video producers to avoid objectionable opinions or points of view … according to Google/YouTube policy standards.

The practices of Google in relation to algorithms that regulate search engines not only had political implications, but also commercial purposes. In the framework of its antitrust laws, the European Commission fined Google 2.7 billion dollars for manipulating them to direct users to its own purchasing service, Google Shopping, by making use of its dominant position.

The obscurity of algorithms: an elementary democratic problem

Cathy O’Neil, data scientist and author of the book Weapons of Math Destruction, warns of the “blind trust” placed in algorithms for obtaining objective results.

The architecture of Internet has a tremendous influence on what is done and what is seen; algorithms influence which content spreads most on Facebook and which appears on top of Google searches. However, users are not aware of this nor able to understand how data are collected and how they are classified.

While Free Basics was criticised for trying to give the disconnected of the Third World access to a second-class connection believing that the Internet is equal to Facebook, it cannot be denied that for “first-class” digital citizens Google is virtually the same as the Internet, because it is what makes it possible to access its contents in an organised way.

In this way, the obscurity of algorithms becomes an elementary democratic problem. After a decade of populist or progressive governments in Latin America, for example, no measures have been taken to control the power of these monopolies of information, while debate on this topic is long overdue.

Not even the left in developed nations has come up with a joint programme. One of the most urgent tasks facing us today is to politicise this issue.

CHINA AND RUSSIA IN THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION’S “NATIONAL SECURITY STRATEGY”, by Michele Nobile

IN DUE LINGUE (Inglese, Italiano)
IN TWO LANGUAGES (English, Italian)

With this piece – which was preceded by “US foreign policy and Trump’s contradictions: questions of method” –, Michele Nobile begins to deepen the analysis of the Trump administration’s foreign policy starting from the recently published National Security Strategy. [the Editorial staff of Red Utopia]

INDEX: Foreword - 1. Defining the problem of national security - 2. The theory of democratic peace in previous administrations - 3. The worldview of 2017 NSS and critique of the theory of democratic peace - 4. China and Russia in previous NSS - 5. China and Russia in 2017 NSS: threats to national security - 6. Relations between China and Russia in American strategy - 7. Provisional conclusion

Donald Trump and China’s president Xi Jinping. Beijing, November 9, 2017 © Nicolas Asfouri

Foreword

At the end of 2017, the Trump’s administration published its National Security Strategy (NSS), the report that the President of the United States is required to present annually to Congress. It is legitimate to ask what interest a document such as an NSS can have since it certainly contains no military action plans, not even in general terms.

An NSS is the result of compromises within the administration and is often overtaken by unforeseen developments; on the other hand, the availability of the means envisaged for achieving stated objectives can also exceed the duration of the administration that produced it – and not just by a few years.

The doubts increase in the face of a president like Trump – contested by foreign and military policy experts in his own party – and the series of sackings or resignations of high-level staff, both as a result of disagreements with the president and imposed by the results of investigations.

Of the thirty 20th-century Secretaries of State, Rex Tillerson is one of the six who have remained in office for the least time, and in the post-Cold War period only Lawrence Eagleburger lasted less. The Trump administration is on its third National Security Advisor in just over a year, while in the space of eight years Clinton and Bush Jr. had just two and Obama three.

Besides, it cannot be said that the Secretary of State and the National Security Adviser appointed by Trump – Mike Pompeo, appointed as director of the CIA, and John Bolton, formerly ambassador to the United Nations under George W. Bush – are characters indicative of a moderate orientation: they are decidedly “hawks” chosen exclusively because of their political proximity to the president.

Furthermore, while all versions of the NSS pay a ritual homage to “American values”, it sounds strange to read in a document introduced by Donald Trump that “the United States rejects bigotry, ignorance and oppression” and that it is committed to defending the rights of women and girls (2017 NSS).

In more substantial terms, as widely predictable in some points, for example on Russia and on NATO, the 2017 NSS appears in contrast with the fears and hopes raised by Trump before his election. One can thus question the extent to which the document reflects the president’s thinking and therefore how reliable it is.

It is remarkable that Trump’s message preceding the latest NSS speaks of “rival powers” aggressive towards American interests in the world, but without naming China and Russia; then, in his speech of December 18, 2017 presenting the document, Trump cited the phone call from Putin thanking him for the intelligence that the CIA was able to provide concerning a major terrorist attack planned in St. Petersburg, but also said that the United States faces “rival powers, Russia and China, that seek to challenge American influence, values, and wealth”, specifying that, “based on my direction, this document has been in development for over a year. It has the endorsement of my entire Cabinet”.

It is not at all unusual for an NSS to be published beyond the terms prescribed by law, but this latter sentence appears as a superfluous clarification, a reassurance that seems to imply the opposite.

As for the rest, the discourse differs from the NSS only in its even more triumphalist tones and for the self-celebration of the presumed identification of the People with the president, elected with almost three million votes less than competitor Hillary Clinton:

“But last year, all of that began to change. The American people rejected the failures of the past. You rediscovered your voice and reclaimed ownership of this nation and its destiny.

On January 20, 2017, I stood on the steps of the Capitol to herald the day the people became the rulers of their nation again. (Applause.) Thank you. Now, less than one year later, I am proud to report that the entire world has heard the news and has already seen the signs. America is coming back, and America is coming back strong”.

Report on the national security strategy was established in 1986 by the Goldwater-Nichols Act: since then seventeen have been published. Well, if you compare 2017 NSS with those which followed the collapse of the Soviet Union, it is clear that it is a very original document, almost on a par with the 2002 NSS of Bush Jr., who formulated the doctrine of “preventive war”.

While it is not possible to deduce from an NSS exactly what an administration will do and when, general indications can nevertheless be drawn about the perception of threats to national security and the attitude with which they are intended to be addressed.

The 2017 NSS contains relatively little about human rights and the promotion of democracy – a fact which may gratify the sympathisers of president Putin and North Korea’s supreme leader –, but the prospect it outlines, which in emphatic terms one might say grand strategy, is no less dangerous than the decision that led to the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq.

Perhaps even more so, in terms of relations with the nuclear powers of China and Russia and for reasons that are not only due to the constraints posed by the Congress, but are intrinsic to the concept of America First as defined by Trump.

The vision of the world contained in the 2017 NSS is substantially in line with that of Trump; however, in its realisation this same vision can lead to considerable fluctuations and confusion in the conduct of US foreign policy not only because of internal opposition, but because it is internally contradictory: this could be the reason for personal disagreements in the Administration, in which different parts push on the poles that constitute the contradiction.

The structure of 2017 NSS is made up of a message from Trump himself, an introduction and four chapters related to as many pillars of national security, plus a chapter that applies the strategy in the regions of the world.

Formally, each chapter presents some priority actions to achieve the objectives indicated, which is a novelty that appears to give concreteness, but which in reality is only stylistic; and also the four pillars or objectives – protecting the American people, promoting prosperity in America, preserving peace through force and advancing America’s influence – are banalities present in every NSS.

The peculiarity of this document must be sought in the way in which those objectives are concretely defined, above all in the definition of the problem of national security and threats.

1. Defining the problem of national security

The message signed by Donald Trump that serves as a preface to 2017 NSS is an arrogant revendication of the Administration’s alleged successes, including having “crushed Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) terrorists”, which, however, was claimed by all the players involved just before Trump took office.

The list of problems inherited from the previous administrations is long: “rogue states”, international terrorism, aggressive powers, uncontrolled immigration, criminal cartels, unequal distribution of defence costs between the United States and allies, impropriety in economic relations.

Against this background, the successes boasted with a triumphalist tone are even more evident: the Trump administration is already “charting a new and very different course”. The president stands as a saviour of the Fatherland, as the one who restored confidence in American values and America’s position in the world – “after one year, the world knows that America is prosperous, America is secure, and America is strong” (2017 NSS).

However, a note of alarm is sounded both in Trump’s message and in the text of the NSS itself: “The United States faces an extraordinarily dangerous world, filled with a wide range of threats that have intensified in recent years”. Apparently it seems a contradiction, but the alarmist note performs several functions.

First of all, keeping the alarm about terrorism and the “rogue states” high is a necessity intrinsic to the doctrine of war and preventive military operations, which is now one of the options for action openly indicated by all US administrations, albeit with different formulas.

Formalisation of this doctrine is a distortion of jus ad bellum (the right to engage in war), with implications also for jus in bello (the rules regulating the conduct of war, for example concerning the treatment of prisoners and civilian populations).

Even in a very broad and very debatable interpretation of the norms of international law, one of the binding criteria – and not the only one – which can justify a military action that anticipates an enemy attack is that of the imminence of aggression.

However, no matter how far it is cloaked in formal references to the needs of self-defence, in the logic of preventive war formalised since 2002 NSS the concept of the imminence of attack is freed from specific temporal and material references, and therefore emptied of real meaning.

The main justification for war and preventive military operations has become the possibility and intention that entities defined as terrorist or “rogue state” procure weapons of mass destruction; this is also tantamount to affirming that for these entities the possession of weapons of mass destruction coincides with the certainty of their use in an indeterminate future and place. War or preventive military operations are thus justified a priori.

…

…

In Trump’s introductory message to the NSS, the unequal sharing of security burdens between the United States and the allies is indicated as one of the reasons that has encouraged opponents to take dangerous actions – the point is then reiterated in the document. Obviously, it is not at all the alliances themselves that are called into question, but the terms with which the other States contribute.

However, the list of faults does not stop here. It covers the whole of the 90s, including the Administrations of Bush Sr. and Clinton, and implicitly also those of Bush Jr. In 2017 NSS, criticism of the idea that US military superiority was guaranteed is fundamental, as is criticism of the Wilsonian (after Woodrow Wilson, president from 1913 to 1921) concept of “democratic peace” which, although articulated in different ways, has been at the centre of the foreign policy pursued by the United States since the end of the Cold War.

ZAHIST PRATZI (“LABOUR DEFENSE”) AT THE EUROPEAN ASSEMBLY OF RESISTANCE IN BUDAPEST, by Andrii Ishchenko

Andrii Ishchenko and Inna Valeshkovskaya

A regional European Assembly of Resistance (EAoR) was held in Budapest (Hungary) from March 2 to 4, 2018: a delegation of the All-Ukrainian Independent Trade Union Zahist Pratzi (“Labour Defense”), consisting of its coordinator, Andrii Ishchenko, and a member of its feminine department, Inna Valeshkovskaya, took part in its work from Ukraine. Among the participants there were representatives of the left and social organizations of Austria, Hungary, Slovenia, Spain, Czech Republic, Germany, Russia, Croatia, Serbia, France and Sweden.

As it was expected, the most heated discussion was on the “Ukrainian issue”. The representative of the pro-Russian party Union of Leftists, Sergei Markin, living outside the country, claimed that a fascist regime is already established in Ukraine and their party is being persecuted and works underground, trying to add to the text of the Final Resolution some paragraphs which would shift its emphases from classist priorities to civilizational ones.

On the contrary, I focused on the fact that the right regime in Ukraine, although slipping increasingly into authoritarianism and carrying out ultra-capitalist reforms, tries to preserve democratic decorations; however, at this time its nature is undistinguished from right-wing authoritarian regimes surrounding Ukraine (Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan).

There are no sufficient grounds to believe that the Ukrainian regime has already turned into an open terrorist dictatorship, since there left and trade union activists can work using legal methods; they consider suicidal to enter stealth mode and will make maximum use of the remaining opportunities for a legal struggle for the Ukrainian workers rights, in spite of the growing pressure of an authoritarian and anti-democratic regime and the persecution of trade union activists in different parts of the country.

In the final text of the General Resolution of the Assembly of Resistance, as a result of an acute and open controversy and a lengthy discussion, almost all of the attendees of the meeting decided to retain its classist orientations and accents of genuine proletarian internationalism; its substance wasn’t distorted by the seeking of “progressive” imperialism and the struggle of civilizations.

Based on the results of the three-days work, the Final Declaration was adopted, in which the participants stated the crisis of the political and parliamentary left-wing practically in all countries of the world, the ubiquitous reduction of the social state (even in Sweden) and the need for joint international actions in which the “overthrow” of authoritarian systems can begin socially only with a broad, mass movement of public self-defense.

Four main directions of joint actions was adopted:

1) In the economy – the fight against the oligarchic economy and its replacement by a mixed multi-sector economy, creating a pluralistic ownership structure for broader groups of society, in other words, the necessity of freedom in organizing cooperatives in all spheres of economy;

2) In social policy – the struggle to improve the living conditions of impoverished social groups. Instead of various forms of bourgeois nationalism, racism, ethnic folly, the persecution of Roms and migrants, the most important public task of the left-wing – regardless of politics – is to ensure the cultural growth of the population, the establishment of civilian “people’s” educational structures and self-education groups;

3) In the political field – the concept of political democracy needs to be supplemented with concepts of economic and cultural democracy, so that everyone could be involved in “democracy”, and not just “elected”. Authoritarian regimes and their excluding constitutions must be rejected. Social rights should be fixed in the constitutions and implemented;

4) In the field of social base – the main keys of the anticapitalist left-wing are trade unions and public organizations. If left forces don’t act as a spokesman of the interests of people living on wages or labor incomes and unemployed workers, they will destroy themselves.

REFLECTIONS ON TURKISH POLICY, by Pier Francesco Zarcone

IN DUE LINGUE (Inglese, Italiano)
IN TWO LANGUAGES (English, Italian)

© Shlomo Cohen

Has Turkey changed under Erdoğan? The question may seem absurd only due to the habit of considering Turkey a secular and Westernised country before Erdoğan came to power.

However, this consolidated image turns out to be false. There has been a change, but not in substance: what has changed is its exteriority. In fact, albeit with periodic recourse to elections, the country has always been governed in an authoritarian way, and today this feature is only more evident and its quality is more pronounced.

Mustafa Kemal and his successors made immense efforts to westernise Turkey quickly – too quickly – and they were apparently successful. Kemalist secularism never appropriated, for example, the French model, but limited itself to putting the Turkish religious world under political and state control and banning its public manifestations.

In the end, a centuries-old national history which had too hastily been sent to the museum of past things has re-emerged with cultural, spiritual and political strength.

On the other hand, the whole history of the Turks from their departure from the steppes of Central Asia has developed under the sign of Islam, and the Kemalist revolution – also imposed bloodily – had in many respects raped the identity of what we could call the “Turkish soul”.

If we want, Atatürk himself, without moustache and Western dress, gave a certain sense of artificiality. This does not mean that there is no longer a Westernised and secular sector in Turkish society, but only that it has lost political and cultural hegemony, and in addition it has proved to be in a minority.

In 2002, the Islamic Justice and Development Party (AKP) won the elections and in a few years managed to penetrate the secular strongholds of public administration and justice that previously seemed impossible to conquer. Their power was neutralised and the same fate fell on the Armed Forces, in theory also a solid pillar and guardians of the Kemalist turnaround.

Ultimately, Erdoğan and the AKP have freed the profound sentiment of popular and Islamic Turkey, the Islamism of which – previously confined to the private sphere – has become free and of public significance.

The success is such that the portrait of Atatürk, still hanging on the walls of public offices, now no longer does damage and can remain where it is – after all it represents a moment of national victory for the Turks.

The victory of the AKP has not led to a new course of democracy, it has simply established a new cult of personality: that of Erdoğan instead of that of Mustafa Kemal. Some say that ultimately the Islamic turnaround was not an end in itself, but the instrument for the affirmation of Erdoğanism.

Now elected directly by the people, Erdoğan behaves as if he were the incarnation of the volonté générale of the Turkish nation. His power is fully consolidated: the AKP has the majority in Parliament, the Armed Forces have been tamed, the judiciary and the Constitutional Court are obedient, the mass media are mostly controlled and finally (and not least) the new masters of the country can distribute public procurement – both large and small – among their clients in peace.

One instrument in particular has shown singular effectiveness: the wide use of a rhetoric that blends victimism, neo-Ottoman arrogance, an internal-external conspiracy syndrome and the hunting of traitors.

This is an effective instrument, because it corresponds to a widespread attitude especially among the most working class, especially Anatolian, sectors and considered by many external observers as a psychological remnant of the troubled history of Ottoman imperial decline.

Treason is now perceived as present in anyone and in any sector that does not go along with the AKP. This is a very heterogeneous basin: Turkish left, Kemalists, liberals, Kurds and pro-Kurds, religious minorities such as the Alevites, the few Shiites in existence, some Armenian and/or Greek Orthodox survivors.

Traitors now include personalities who were once authoritative exponents of the AKP, but then fell into the unforgivable sin of political dissidence – albeit minimal: Abdullah Gül, one of the founders of the AKP and former president of the Republic; Bülent Arınç, also co-founder and former speaker of the Parliament; and finally Ahmet Davutoğlu, former minister of Foreign Affairs and president of the Council.

Fethullah Gülen is a well-known enemy, but it is worth recalling that without his support (due to the vast network of connections he had at his disposal) Erdoğan might not have succeeded in winning over the secular bureaucracy and the Armed Forces during the crucial period of 2011–12.

In addition there is the growing nostalgia for the Ottoman – that is Islamic imperial – period, a source of inspiration for Erdoğan’s variable and contradictory foreign policy, thanks to which Turkey remains in NATO but performs nonchalant “waltzes” with Russia.

Finally, there are the expansionist ambitions, which today are aimed at Syria, using the Kurdish obsession of Erdoğan as a pretext.

SEESAWING BETWEEN MOSCOW AND WASHINGTON

On the Kurdish problem, the initial “opening” of the Turkish president did not last long, and he returned to the most obtuse Turkish nationalism and its basic lie: the Kurds do not exist, they are simply “Mountain Turks”.

Thanks also to the previous complicity of Erdoğan with the jihadists in Syria, a situation has now arisen in which the Syrian Kurds – connected with the PKK of Turkey – are not seen as enemies either by the Kremlin or by Washington; hence Erdoğan’s swinging between Russia and the United States, welcomed by his interlocutors in an opportunistic way when convenient, but always with suspicion.

Incidentally, the Kurdish-Syrian problem is not the only one to pollute relations between Ankara and Washington: it seems that investigators of the FBI are working on a dossier on Erdoğan, his family and related entourage for a fraud involving the Turkish State Bank regarding trade with Iran, subject to the accusation of violating US sanctions and banking laws.

The problem will become tangible if there are indictments against the suspects, with the risk of US sanctions against Turkey. In this case, the question could also – in theory – be reflected on Turkish membership of NATO. If this were to happen, a further Turkish rapprochement with Russia should not be surprising, notwithstanding the unknown quantity of Russian willingness (and possibility) to accept Turkish claims on the Kurds of Syria.

THE AFRIN ISSUE

Meanwhile, in Afrin things are not going very well for the troops of Ankara, struggling with a fierce resistance and technical difficulties in protecting their armoured vehicles, which in fact have suffered substantial losses. If the final battle were to arrive, the Turks would most likely win it, but at the price of very strong losses not only in terms of material resources, but also of human lives.

On the possibility or not of Russian acceptance of Turkish claims in Syria, a reflection is necessary. In Syria, Moscow has entered into agreements with the Damascus government for its geostrategic interests. The military presence of Russia requires that the country be stabilised and remain a friend; to this end there are no serious alternatives to Assad, whose government must be definitively strengthened and regain control of all Syrian territory. Not easy, but not impossible.

In light of this, Russia has no interest in supporting the Turkish claims, since it would clash with the government of Damascus leaving only a rather uncertain eventuality: that is to say that Ankara, pushing to the extreme, ends up breaking with NATO. As things stand, a prudent strategist can only wait for the fruit, in the case of maturation, to fall by itself into the metaphorical basket.

It is clear that the Afrin operation has a dual function: annihilate the Kurds in the border areas and establish a Turkish control zone in northern Syria, to be used as a basis for the anti-Assad jihadists supported by Ankara – perhaps giving Turkey the hegemony over what remains of Jihadism in Syria.

This would mean prolonging the Syrian conflict and nullifying government victories supported by the Russians. It follows that the Afrin operation goes against the interests of Russia: this is enough to disprove certain rumours about a prior agreement between Erdoğan and Putin.

It seems that the Assad regime has facilitated the transfer of Kurdish fighters in the Afrin area, and the logic of this initiative is clear: for now Kurdish ambitions do not threaten Damascus, but the same cannot be said in the case of a Turkish victory.

In the meantime, it looks like the Kurds have ceded some territories in the Aleppo area to government control. And if, as the al-Masdar agency claims, the Kurds will hand over the city of Manbij – a clear Turkish target – to the government in the near future, then it would mean that in order to continue Turkey would also go against Russia.

THE DILEMMA FOR RUSSIA

Here things become complicated for Russian policy, which is moving on a kind of tightrope. On the one hand, without Turkish cooperation the stability of Syria remains at risk; on the other hand, Ankara’s initiatives are at odds with this cooperation.

In addition, Moscow will have to avoid direct confrontation between Syrian and Turkish troops, and not only because the Syrians would have the worst of it: besides the serious deterioration of relations between Russia and Turkey (and so much for Syrian stabilisation), Moscow would receive not resistible pressure from Damascus and Tehran for its intervention, with potentially dangerous US countermoves.

But Turkey also has an interest in non-deterioration of its relations with Russia. The situation appears to be one of stalemate, but Moscow would have at least one chance to negotiate – especially if Kurdish resistance caused the Turks very heavy losses.

It would be a question of leveraging two factors: the fact that Ankara would still have achieved the objective of securing the Syrian border by blocking supplies between the Kurds of Syria and the PKK, as well as the costs – and dangers – that going beyond would imply.

At the same time, Moscow could act on the Kurds of Syria underlining the convenience of abandoning risky initiatives solicited by the United States – which would then leave them to their destiny – and convincing them, moreover, to soften their attitude towards the government of Damascus, because an agreement with it could have calming effects on Turkey.

A corollary would be to persuade Damascus to accept for the moment (and under Russian protection) both a Turkish presence in the north and the concession to the Kurds of some autonomy that would not be dangerous for the interests of Ankara.